A Problem of Justice
by PragmaticHominid
Summary: The Mage that they brought before Candle Adaar for judgement was little but skin and bone, bundled loosely together inside a ragged black coat. But she knew who he was just the same.


The Mage, when they brought him before Candle for judgement, was nothing but skin and bone, bundled loosely together inside a ragged black coat.

There weren't many people in the hall with them. Less than there had been half an hour ago, certainly, and Candle had the feeling that some of those who had stormed off when she had made it clear that she would not be swayed in this matter might not be coming back. This did not especially bother her.

She wanted to see the Mage's face - for quite a long time she had wished to look into his eyes and see what was to be seen there - but his head was bowed, lank straw-colored hair curtaining his face.

Her seat, which she could never think of as anything other than a throne and which therefore she had never sat comfortably in, felt far too high above him. She stood and walked down the steps.

The Mage was lanky but still substantially shorter than Candle was herself, especially bowed over as he was, folded in on himself like a puppet who's strings had been cut. So she sat down on the bottom step of the throne.

Now they were eye to eye to one another - or would have been, had the Mage deigned to look at her, and she wondered if it was despair or defiance or some mixture of both that kept him from lifting his head when he most certainly had heard her approach. Candle didn't do much quietly.

Her guards were anxious. Out of the corner of her eye she could see their hands going to the pummels of their swords, others reaching other their shoulders to grasp staves. Ignoring them, Candle draped her forearms over her knees and leaned forward.

"You are a problem," she informed him conversationally. "Half my commanding officers are threatening to march their soldiers out of here tonight if I don't have the Rite preformed on you - right here, right now. The rest are willing to settle for a hanging, though they'll grouse about it."

His voice was not what she expected. There's a note of sarcasm to it, but no real bite. "Much cheerier atmosphere at a hanging, I've always found," he said offhandedly, as though it didn't matter too much one way or the other to him. But he had begun to tremble when she mentioned Tranquility, so severely that Candle could see the feathers on his shoulders shaking.

One feather came loose and drifted toward the floor, and without pausing to think about why she did it Candle reached down and plucked up the broken and bent speck of blackness, and secreted it away in her pocket.

"Maybe," she allowed. "But myself, I'd rather have a reunion."

She had wanted to say much more; that she was a problem too, and knew what it was like, but that since the weird mark on her hand was apparently the key to solving a much larger problem she thought that maybe - just maybe - she could get away with saving him. And she wanted to say that she'd let all of Thedas burn before she'd be responsible for having the Brand put on another Mage. She wanted to tell how much time she had spent thinking about him, trying to tease apart the truth from a hundred different tales, trying to understand.

"Anders, Hawke is here," she said instead, and he looked up at that, finally, his head snapping upwards on a spindly neck, and when she saw what was in his eyes - so much desperation and hurt and despair warring with a sudden flood of hope and longing and in the wake of that fear at the prospect of wanting something that might be a lie, then defiance in the face of that fear, and all of it speckled with blue Fade light - she had to break away.

Candle Adaar was not a cryer but she thought that if she looked into his eyes much longer she might begin to cry, so she stood up and aimed a glare at the soldiers flanking Anders. "Get those chains off him," she commanded.

"I'll get Hawke," she promised without turning to look at Anders again, and as she hurried away she found that she could not tell if the noise that behind her was laughter or sobs.


End file.
